People v. Matthew Keschner

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AD1 order of affirmance dated September 24, 2013. Decision below: 110 AD3d 216, 973 NYS2d 7. Graffeo, J., granted leave December 9, 2013. To be argued June 1, 2015.
ISSUES PRESENTED: (1) Whether, as counsel argued, where the head of the alleged corrupt enterprise - the prosecution’s star witness - was indispensable to the enterprise’s creation and continued existence, the enterprise lacked the statutorily requisite continuity of existence, which requires the voiding of appellant’s enterprise-corruption conviction. (2) Whether, in this case involving only specific-intent crimes, the court’s main and supplemental accessorial-liability charge removed or reduced to “knowledge” the mental-culpability element in at least half of its iterations, and whether counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing to object to the defective instructions. (Assigned counsel: Susan Salomon and Robert S. Dean, Center for Appellate Litigation, 120 Wall Street, 28th Floor, NYC 10005.) (Leave was also granted to co-defendant Aron Goldman.)


"continuity of existence" element of enterprise corruption: IAC for failing to object to defective charge